My (almost) last piece on Bird on taking the Bible seriously, not literally (in the case of Genesis 1, etc.).
What is it to take this passage seriously?
For a start, it is to take it literally; taking it seriously without taking it literally substitutes for its account of creation, and the ontological context it provides, an alternative account, and an alternative ontology: perilous.
If the passage does not set out what happened, then clearly something else that we don't know from the text happened. How, then is it possible for the text to convey anything to us about the theological implications of creation, if all we have is an impression of what we know not.
A substitute will spring up instantly, the current substitute displaces God; not only in the popular mind, but in the critical mind too. It is only in the minds of some theologians that the displacement is innocuous.
So, what is the creation account, theologically?
The centripetal significance starts with it being God's credential for our worship. As with passages that remind Israel of historical events that signpost God's relationship with them, so the reminders of who God is, being creator.
These passages point only to one place: Genesis 1. God's chief credential in relation to us is this passage. That the passage sets out an ontological basis for real life, is fundamentally important; and this is, contrary to the pagan speculation from Plato on (arcing out in Hegel, most recently); we are told that the world is basically communicable and God's relation to it is in concrete acts that have effect in the world that we know. The framework of our existence is set out in these terms. Thus is provided our metaphysical bearings, our ethical epistemology, and our existential location. Sweep this aside and we look to, for instance Mr Darwin and his 'neo' followers for these; and they then start not with the God who communicates, loves and draws relationship, but with mute matter; all else being a random chemical epiphenomenon.
The trace that starts in Genesis 1 (and with a profound physical fact in light being created first: light...energy, then arguably, the expanse of space), tours through the huge milestones of our relationship with God: the fall: another actual real event; the dispersion of Babel, the flood; and the trajectory of redemption that is grounded with Abram. Indeed, Christ points back, centripetally to the cluster of events of creation in some of his basic teaching. He speaks as though the account refers to something that happened and is meaningful for our understanding of who we are.
To reiterate; absent that grounded (concrete) location; we drift...and mostly, we drift away from our Creator.
